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With the rivers a bit swollen for Grayling on the fly, the recent milder weather might coax us in to dusting off the tackle in the corner of the garage for a trip to a local still water.

Here are a few methods you can try;

Short Line Booby
Definitely not one for the traditionalist but you need to approach winter fishing slightly differently (if you want to catch)

A fast sinking line is used with a very short leader (12 inches max) a floating booby fly is used and the line is fished with a dead slow retrieve. You want the fly line to completely sink to the bottom which will have the effect of the booby popping up a few inches or so and moving around as you retrieve (hopefully past the nose of a snoozing trout)

3 Buzzers – Top, Middle & Bottom
A nice long leader with 2 droppers. A beaded buzzer on the point and then 2 buzzers on the droppers further up. The midge larvae is present in most still waters all year round including the depths of winter. This method allows you to search the water column to locate feeding fish. Again try a slow retrieve and allow the team of buzzers to work round in the natural drift of the water.

Fly Under a Dry
Alright, there isn’t much on the surface at the minute to justify using dries but if you cannot bring yourself to use a float indicator then a nice large dry fly such as a wulf or daddy long legs with a buzzer or small nymph hanging underneath it may do the trick, The type of dry isn’t that important as we are not really expecting a take on it however you never know! This method allows the nymph to be fished static at a fixed depth which can be effective when the fish are more dormant.

Good luck, that’s all for now!

Find the top winter still water flies using our fly finder.

Free Video River Fly Fishing Course

20+ instructional videos, shot in 4k. Free to all new and existing newsletter subscribers – Click Here!